January 20 2013

11:30 PM

Here are some equipment news and notes from around the golf world this weekend:

Lee Westwood tests out new Ping G25 driver

Lee Westwood may have a new driver in the bag at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, after he spent last week at Ping testing out the new G25 driver. Westwood had been playing the G10 — a model that's a couple years old — for the past couple of seasons. He concentrated on spin and trajectory during the testing session and left Ping's headquarters with two G25 drivers.

David Toms puts Cleveland tour-only prototype irons in play at Humana Challenge

David Toms broke his own equipment on Tuesday when he tweeted out a photo of his Cleveland 588 TC irons. The tour-only prototypes, which were designed after the CG7 Tour irons Toms had been using, have a more compact head shape and less offset in the long irons than the recently released 588 TT's. Toms put the irons in play at the Humana Challenge. Cleveland is still discussing whether it will bring the 588 TC to retail in the future (Phots credit: @davidtomsgolf).

Phil Mickelson decides to go with Odyssey's Versa putter at Humana

Phil Mickelson put Odyssey's new Versa putter — #9 model (white/black/white) — in the bag at the Humana Challenge. After working with putter during the offseason, Mickelson noted that everything seemed to click with the putter when he started using it at night on the green in his backyard.

“It's the same model that I have, but it's got white, black contrast as opposed to lines," Mickelson said after Thursday's first round. "And I didn't think much of it until I was putting at night and I just started making everything in my yard. And it kind of dawned on me that I wasn't looking at the line and getting so line conscious at the ball I was more worried about kind of rolling the putt and I just knew where I was aimed instinctively from the contrast on the putter and I thought that, gosh, this might, this actually might have something to it."

Mickelson finished T-37 at 17-under.

Jason Dufner switches to Scotty Cameron GoLo putter Jason Dufner won two events last season on the PGA TOUR with a Scotty Cameron Circa '62 No. 6 GSS Prototype putter, but he decided to switch things up at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. Dufner, who used the Circa '62 at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, previewed some new Cameron Tour models on the putting green in Abu Dhabi early in the week and gravitated to a center-shafted Cameron Select GoLo S5 putter.

After practicing with it, Dufner said he felt it was easier to make a consistent stroke and achieve a consistent center strike with the new putter and decided to put it in the bag. Dufner finished T-9 in Abu Dhabi.